This week we welcome William Cox as our PyDev of the Week. William is a data scientist who has spoken at a few Python conferences. He maintains a blog where you can catch up on what’s new with him.
Let’s spend a few moments getting to know William better!
Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):
I’ve always loved building things. I spent most of highschool building robots and running a blog about robots. I got a degree in electrical engineering thanks to this, and then went on to get a PhD in signal processing and digital communications. Outside of work I enjoy wood and metal working and being outdoors. Mostly though, I’m a full-time parent.
Why did you start using Python?
I first used Python in graduate school when I needed to automate reading from a serial input device connected up to one of our sensors. I’d been programming for a long time at that point and Python was a pretty easy jump from Perl. My computer science friends were telling me Python was great so I saw it as an opportunity to branch out again.
What other programming languages do you know and which is your favorite?
When I was 12 my dad dropped “Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days” on my desk and said, “you should learn this.” It took me much longer than 21 days, but I’m glad he did that. I dabbled in several languages (PHP, Java, C) but spent many years in graduate school honing my MATLAB skills, due to its powerful plotting and data analysis capabilities. My first job was at a military contractor and they all used MATLAB. This was the early 10’s and Python was really taking off as the language of scientific computing so I was able to convince my boss that it was something I should be learning – he was especially attracted to how much money they could save over their massive MATLAB bills. I got my 2nd job with my impressive iPython Notebook skills! It was, however, till I started my 2nd job that I finally started learning what it means to write software with a team. It’s a lot different than dabbling on your own…
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Be kind to your coworkers! Careers are long.
Thanks for doing the interview, William
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